Overview

Founded in 1974, CGL offers planning, design, owners’ representation, maintenance, and financing for justice facilities on a global scale.

Challenge

In the early 2010’s CGL grew rapidly as several boutique architecture firms came together under the same name. Those firms’ individual local IT infrastructures continued to work in silo disparate teams rather than on a unified company network. CGL struggled with technical issues such as collaborating across multiple offices in real-time and accessing files stored on the parent company servers

Those firms’ individual local IT infrastructures continued to work in silo disparate teams rather than on a unified company network. CGL struggled with technical issues such as collaborating across multiple offices in real-time and accessing files stored on the parent company servers.

CGL believed their forward-thinking benefit from a cloud hosted solution. CGL engaged Advance2000 services after learning about their AEC project cloud offerings at a Revit User Group meeting that took place in Manhattan, NY. CGL piloted Advance2000’s project cloud on a recently won project. CGL selected 10 BIM specialist team members to test the new system during the pilot phase. Over a 6-month period, the project grew in scope, demands, and resources. Advance2000 rapidly scaled to meet CGL’s needs. By the end of the project, a full third of CGL’s employed BIM specialists were working on the Advance2000 CGL project cloud, collaborating in real-time on a file nearly four times the anticipated size. Based on the escalating project demands, CGL quickly learned how well the solution met their needs and what to expect from Advance2000 long-term. CGL’s Revit users found the high-performance and output capacity of the Advance2000 project cloud solution impressive. CGL chose Advance2000 as their permanent IT solution partner.

Project deployment experience

When the pilot was originally scoped, CGL chose expert Revit users who kept “open tech minds” during this experience. The tech-savvy specialists wanted to explore any possible issues that could arise on a cloud solution during a project of this size. The team identified hurdles and growing pains early which enabled both CGL BIM specialists and Advance2000 Solution Engineers to solve obstacles immediately. Even while testing an entirely new collaboration platform, the responsive collaboration between the two companies kept the project timeline on track.

Architect and BIM professional Andre Voss recalled there were “lessons learned, and the systems improved.” Our two companies were able to clearly identify needs, reach solutions, and smooth out any bumps in workflows and overall user experience. CGL experienced first hand that Advance2000 made certain their firm received the right solution to fit their needs rather than deliver a solution that CGL would have to figure out how to work in. The official roll out of the company wide infrastructure went extremely well. “I was even able to go on vacation on roll-out week without worrying,” Mr. Voss said, “and when I came back, everything was running as it should.”

“We chose to continue our partnership with Advance2000 and increase our use and involvement due to the support and timely solutions provided to our staff.”

Robert Glass, AIA | Executive Vice President Director of Justice Services CGL

Solution

CGL utilizes Advance2000’s fully hosted virtual infrastructure, including both Advance2000 Enhanced and Designer Plus Virtual Desktops (VDIs) delivered using the VMware Horizon platform, over 6 TBs of storage, and a dedicated Firewall. CGL accesses this infrastructure both over secure, private point-to-point circuits from their main offices and over the public Internet from anywhere, including home offices and in the field. As of the time of this writing, Advance2000 had deployed 55 desktops. This was made up of 15 Enhanced Designer and 40 Q2 Designer Plus VDIs, and is in the process of implementing Advance2000 hosted VoIP telephony services (Cloud In-Touch) company wide, and migrating CGL’s email services into Office 365.

Results

The entire company improved their IT infrastructure in ways they didn’t know existed. CGL has grown their teams, their portfolio, and their brand recognition in the justice facility sector due to IT infrastructure optimization.

 

Learn more about how our BIM Cloud, explicitly tailored for the AEC industry,  it’s bringing true collaboration and communication to the entire design, engineering, and construction teams.